And back to the subject at hand, I think rather than descend...

And back to the subject at hand, I think rather than descend into an off-topic flame war it might be helpful to unpick the technicals and info flow that we all have. Have been reviewing the AIS and ARE threads and have picked out a few common themes that both ARE and AIS holders have been commenting about here.

Obviously the Torrens Exploration project has been beset by delays and other legal/title impediments that have prevented drilling in the area. So we had a situation where a drilling contractor had a lot of technical challenges and presumably AIS management only were directing the drilling on a day to day basis, but did have to keep its JV partner (ARE) informed on at least a monthly basis.

Target Selection - obviously the co-incident Mag and Gravity targets were preferred, the recent outburst by ARE seems to imply that they thought the gravity anomalies should have been the preferred target, if so, was this communicated to AIS before site prep? And is this just an example of 20:20 hindsight? The other thing is that if the budget was around $5M was this a reasonable budget to start with, for the amounts of targets to be tested? Who knows? Maybe 10 years ago when the drilling was first proposed it may have been.

Technical competence - was the drilling contractor aware of water and ground conditions? What info about (any?) previous drilling was passed on or reviewed prior to the design of the drill program? Its not like there was a surplus of data about the ground conditions in this very remote and almost undrilled region of SA. I have been to places where the last exploration hole was drilled by drillers who are probably up in the big crib hut in the sky now so all that technical expertise and driller knowledge is lost or buried in dusty old reports in filing cabinets. Was the equipment and contractor selection correct? The long logistics and special environmental conditions (drilling on Salt Lake Bed) undoubtedly made things more difficult and more expensive.

Ongoing communication - I can see on the 6th May that ARE basically released AIS progress report, whatever the case by May it was clear that the contractor has had and was solving water and other drill problems but of course anyone familiar with drilling would know that this would mean higher drill costs and expenditures. Information leaks can come from anywhere - drill contractors, government agencies called in to inspect or vary drill licences and permits, and of course anyone in the ARE and AIS offices who has access to the drill progress, possibly even other subcontractors such as transportation trucking companies/helicopter hire/drill consumable suppliers or any person at any pub frequented by any of the above. Quite a remote drill site and camp so maybe not too difficult to investigate any sources or leaks of info there but the guys on the rig rely on other people further away for logistical and technical support.

Not looking to crucify anyone, but worth mentioning that the technical problems (down the hole and at the rig) are solved by people there in a genuine effort to continue the drilling, after all its their professional and technical competence and their own jobs at risk. Sometimes with drilling you can be "unlucky" - if drilling was so predictable it would be a safe investment and drilling and mineral exploration companies would be rated as blue chip stock. The fact is that they are always at risk of technical ground/geological and engineering failures and remember they are only testing geophysical targets, not every geophysical target is an economic orebody, and failure to find an orebody is an expected part of exploration.

Everyone hates exploration drilling in difficult places - mountain ranges, lake beds, environmentally sensitive areas, isolated areas with no roads, areas with deep cover etc etc but quite a lot of the "easy" places to drill have already been tested and orebodies found.

The other important issue is the possibility of multiple sources or information leaks, before we crucify people we need to be able to prove the where, what and how. But the issue of a partially misinformed market (insider selling) is a serious one, and I have no evidence that ASIC and/or the ASX are competent regulators, better to assume that in the perfectly informed market at all times is in reality that the market is not regulated properly and operating in an orderly informed manner and make your investment decisions from there.